_Continental Philosophy: __A Critical Approach_ is a lucid and wide-ranging introduction to the key figures and philosophical movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Includes chapters on Hegel; Marx and Western Marxism; Schopenhauer, Freud, and Bergson; Nietzsche; hermeneutics; phenomenology; existentialism; structuralism,; poststructuralism; French feminism; and postmodernism. Provides an ideal text or background resource for many different introductory and advanced courses on modern European philosophy.

_The Continental Philosophy Reader_ is the first complete anthology of classic writings from the major figures in European thought and provides a powerful introduction to one of the 20th century's most influential intellectual movements.

This paper critically engages with Simon Glendinning’s The Idea of Continental Philosophy. Glendinning purports to show that there can be no coherent philosophical understanding of continental philosophy as comprising any sort of distinct or unified tradition. In this paper, however, I raise some questions about the largely unilateral direction in which his account of the motives for the divide is pursued: analytic philosophy is envisaged as pathologically projecting the internal and unavoidable threat of philosophical failure (...) upon an external ‘continental’ other. I also contend that Glendinning’s claims regarding the lack of thematic and methodological continuity at work in continental philosophy are overstated. Without denying that there is less of a normative consensus undergirding this polyvocal tradition than is evinced in the analytic tradition, in the second half of the paper I will argue for a ‘quasi-unity’ that revolves around the co-imbrication of methodological considerations and what I characterise as continental philosophy’s ‘temporal turn’. (shrink)

Continental philosophy underwent a 'return to religion' or a 'theological turn' in the late 20th century. And yet any conversation between continental philosophy and theology must begin by addressing the perceived distance between them: that one is concerned with destroying all normative, metaphysical order (continental philosophy's task) and the other with preserving religious identity and community in the face of an increasingly secular society (theology's task). Colby Dickinson argues in Continental Philosophy and (...) Theology rather that perhaps such a tension is constitutive of the nature of order, thinking and representation which typically take dualistic forms and which might be rethought, though not necessarily abolished. Such a shift in perspective even allows one to contemplate this distance as not opting for one side over the other or by striking a middle ground, but as calling for a nondualistic theology that measures the complexity and inherently comparative nature of theological inquiry in order to realign theology's relationship to continental philosophy entirely. (shrink)

In this enlightening new Very Short Introduction, Simon Critchley shows us that Continental philosophy encompasses a distinct set of philosophical traditions and practices, with a compelling range of problems all too often ignored by the analytic tradition. He discusses the ideas and approaches of philosophers such as Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Habermas, Foucault, and Derrida. He also introduces key concepts such as existentialism, nihilism, and phenomology, by explaining their place in the Continental tradition. The perfect (...) guide for anyone interested in the great philosophers, this volume explains in lucid, straightforward language the split between Continental and Anglo-American philosophy and the importance of acknowledging Continental philosophy. (shrink)

The key objective of this volume is to allow philosophy students and early-stage researchers to become practicing philosophers in technoscientific settings. Zwart focuses on the methodological issue of how to practice continental philosophy of technoscience today. This text draws upon continental authors such as Hegel, Engels, Heidegger, Bachelard and Lacan in developing a coherent message around the technicity of science or rather, “technoscience”. Within technoscience, the focus will be on recent developments in life sciences research, such (...) as genomics, post-genomics, synthetic biology and global ecology. This book uniquely presents continental perspectives that tend to be underrepresented in mainstream philosophy of science, yet entail crucial insights for coming to terms with technoscience as it is evolving on a global scale today. This is an open access book. (shrink)

Through a curated selection of essays written over four decades by one of Australia’s leading philosophers, this collection demonstrates the impact of Continental philosophy on philosophical thought in Australia.

_Continental Philosophy: A Contemporary Introduction_ is ideal for students coming to the topic for the first time. It introduces the origins and development of the tradition, tracing it from Kant to the present day. Taking a clear thematic approach, Andrew Cutrofello introduces and assesses continental philosophy’s relation to fundamental questions in philosophy, such as ethics, humanism, phenomenology, politics and metaphysics, centring the book around the following questions: What is knowledge? What is moral obligation? For what should (...) we hope? What is ‘man’? What is critique? Andrew Cutrofello’s style is lively and engaging. He also introduces the major as well as the lesser-known thinkers of the continental tradition: from Kant, Mill and Nietzsche and Husserl to Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Sartre Levinas, Bataille and Kristeva. (shrink)

This volume explores of the history of figures, issues, and debates in Continental philosophy to re-frame our understanding of how modern and recent philosophy has unfolded, especially through the investigation of understudied ideas and thinkers.

From Sartre to Levinas, continental philosophers have looked to the example of the Jew as the paradigmatic object of and model for ethical inquiry. Levinas, for example, powerfully dedicates his 1974 book Otherwise than Being to the victims of the Holocaust, and turns attention to the state of philosophy after Auschwitz. Such an ethics radically challenges prior notions of autonomy and comprehension-two key ideas for traditional ethical theory and, more generally, the Greek tradition. It seeks to respect the (...) opacity of the other and avoid the dangers of hermeneutic violence. But how does such an ethics of the other translate into real, everyday life? What is at stake in thinking the other as Jew? Is the alterity of the Jew simply a counter to Greek universalism? Is a rhetoric of exceptionalism, with its unavoidable ontological residue, at odds with shifting political realities? Within this paradigm, what then becomes of the Arab or Muslim, the other of the Jew, the other of the other, so to speak? This line of ethical thought-in its desire to bear witness to past suffering and come to terms with subjectivity after Auschwitz-arguably brackets from analysis present operations of power. Would, then, a more sensitive historical approach expose the Palestinian as the other of the Israeli? Here, Zahi Zalloua offers a challenging intervention into how we configure the contemporary. (shrink)

What makes philosophy on the continent of Europe so different and exciting? And why does it have such a reputation for being 'difficult'? Continental philosophy was initiated amid the revolutionary ferment of the 18th century, philosophers such as Kant and Hegel confronting the extremism of the time with theories that challenged the very formation of individual and social consciousness. Covering the great philosophers of the modern and postmodern eras – from Nietzsche, Heidegger, Derrida and Deleuze right to (...) up Agamben and Žižek – and philosophical movements from German idealism to deconstruction and feminism – Christopher Kul-Want and Piero brilliantly elucidate some of the most thrilling and powerful ideas ever to have been discussed. (shrink)

The flowering of creative and speculative philosophy that emerged in modern Europe--particularly in Germany--is a thrilling adventure story as well as an essential chapter in the history of philosophy. In this integrative narrative, Solomon provides an accessible introduction to the major authors and movements of modern European philosophy, including the Enlightenment and Romanticism, Rousseau, German Idealism, Kant, Fichte, Schelling and the Romantics, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Feuerbach, Max Brentano, Meinong, Frege, Dilthey, Bergson, Nietzsche, Husserl, Freud, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, hermeneutics, (...) Sartre, Postmodernism, Structuralism, Foucault, and Derrida. (shrink)

Covering the complete development of post-Kantian Continental philosophy, this volume serves as an essential reference work for philosophers and those engaged in the many disciplines that are integrally related to Continental and European Philosophy.

From Immanuel Kant to Postmodernism, this volume provides an unparalleled student resource: a wide-ranging collection of the essential works of more than 50 seminal thinkers in modern European philosophy. Areas covered include Kant and German Idealism, Existentialism, Phenomenology, Hermeneutics, Marxism and the Frankfurt School, Structuralism, Psychoanalysis, Feminism, Deconstruction, and Postmodernism. Each section begins with a concise and helpful introduction, and all the texts have been selected for accessibility as well as significance, making the volume ideal for introductory and advanced (...) levels in philosophy, cultural studies, literary theory, and the history of modern thought. (shrink)

Contemporary Continental Philosophy steps back from current debates comparing Continental and analytic philosophy and carefully, yet critically outlines the tradition’s main philosophical views on epistemology and ontology. Forgoing obscure paraphrases, D’Amico provides a detailed, clear account and assessment of the tradition from its founding by Husserl and Heidegger to its challenge by Derrida and Foucault. Though intended as a survey of this tradition throughout the twentieth century, this study’s focus is on the philosophical problems which gave (...) it birth and even now continue to shape it.The book reexamines Husserl as an early critic of epistemological naturalism whose grasp of the philosophical importance of the theory of meaning was largely ignored. Heidegger’s contrasting effort to revive ontology is examined in terms of his distinction between ontic and ontological questions. In contrast with many earlier studies, the author outlines confusions engendered by the misappropriation of the distinct philosophical agendas of Husserl and Heidegger by such famous figures as Sartre and Merleau-Ponty. The book is also original in its emphasis on how social externalism in epistemology, inspired by Karl Mannheim, influenced this tradition’s structuralist and Marxist phases. The philosophical defenses of a theory of interpretation by Gadamer and Habermas are closely examined and assessed and the study concludes with a a probing yet balanced account of Foucault and Derrida as critics of philosophical autonomy. The book concludes by reassessing this century-long divide between the analytic and Continental traditions and its implication for the future of philosophy. (shrink)

Contemporary continental philosophy is a widely used but in many ways problematic term, and its exact frame of reference is not always clear. In French manifestations in particular, it continues to arouse considerable controversy and create bitter divisions, with especially hostile reactions to the work of Derrida and others. Much work in the recent continental tradition can be fitted into a longer-running philosophical tradition of scepticism and scepticism has always had the power to provoke and unsettle the (...) philosophical establishment. (shrink)

A triple sampling of the rich diversity of philosophical reflection on religion and on the relation of philosophy to religion within “continental” traditions. The first part explores three accounts of the relation of phenomenology to religion as presented by Heidegger, Ricoeur, and Marion. The second part explores Heidegger’s critique of metaphysics in its onto-theological constitution with detailed attention to just what he means by this notion and with special reference to the religious and theological motivations one might have (...) for wanting to avoid onto-theological thinking. The third part explores the renewed interest in negative theology that revolves around the conversation between Derrida and Marion. (shrink)

The first collection of its kind, The Continental Philosophy of Film Reader is the essential anthology of writings by continental philosophers on cinema, representing the last century of film-making and thinking about film, as well as all of the major schools of Continental thought: phenomenology and existentialism, Marxism and critical theory, semiotics and hermeneutics, psychoanalysis, and postmodernism. Included here are not only the classic texts in continental philosophy of film, from Benjamin's “The Work of (...) Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” to extracts of Deleuze's Cinema and Barthes's Mythologies, but also the earliest works of Continental philosophy of film, from thinkers such as Georg Lukács, and little-read gems by philosophical giants such as Sartre and Beauvoir. The book demonstrates both the philosophical significance of these thinkers' ideas about film, as well their influence on filmmakers in Europe and across the globe. In addition, however, this wide-ranging collection also teaches us how important film is to the last century of European philosophical thought. Almost every major continental European thinker of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries has had something to say-sometimes, quite a lot to say-about cinema: as an art form, as a social or political phenomenon, as a linguistic device and conveyor of information, as a projection of our fears and desires, as a site for oppression and resistance, or as a model on the basis of which some of us, at least, learn how to live. Purpose built for classroom use, with pedagogical features introducing and contextualizing the extracts, this reader is an indispensable tool for students and researchers in philosophy of film, film studies and the history of cinema. (shrink)

Continental Philosophy of Science provides an expert guide to the major twentieth-century French and German philosophical thinking on science. A comprehensive introduction by the editor provides a unified interpretative survey of continental work on philosophy of science. Interpretative essays are complemented by key primary-source selections. Includes previously untranslated texts by Bergson, Bachelard, and Canguilhem and new translations of texts by Hegel and Cassirer. Contributors include Terry Pinkard, Jean Gayon, Richard Tieszen, Michael Friedman, Joseph Rouse, Mary Tiles, (...) Hans-Jöerg Rheinberger, Linda Alcoff, Todd May, Axel Honneth, and Penelope Deutscher. (shrink)

This book provides a clear, concise and readable introduction to philosophy in the continental tradition. It is a wide-ranging and reliable guide to the work of such major figures as Habermas, Foucault, Derrida, Heidegger, Sartre and Nietzsche. At the same time, it situates their thought within a coherent overall account of the development of continental philosophy since the Enlightenment. Individual chapters consider the character of modernity, the Enlightenment and its continental critics; the ideas of Marxism, (...) the Frankfurt School and Habermas; hermeneutics and phenomenology; existentialism; structuralism and post-structuralism; and postmodernism. In addition to the thinkers already mentioned, there is extended discussion of the ideas of Kant, Hegel, Dilthey, Husserl, Gadamer, Kierkegaard, De Beauvoir and Lyotard. An Introduction to Continental Philosophy is an invaluable introductory text for courses on continental philosophy as well as courses dealing with major figures or influential approaches within that tradition. It will also be most helpful to students and academics from the many disciplines which have been significantly influenced by continental philosophy in recent years, including politics, sociology, anthropology, psychology, theology, literature and cultural studies. (shrink)

Continental Philosophy of Social Science demonstrates the unique and autonomous nature of the continental approach to social science and contrasts it with the Anglo-American tradition. Yvonne Sherratt argues for the importance of an historical understanding of the Continental tradition in order to appreciate its individual, humanist character. Examining the key traditions of hermeneutic, genealogy, and critical theory, and the texts of major thinkers such as Gadamer, Ricoeur, Derrida, Nietzsche, Foucault, the Early Frankfurt School and Habermas, she (...) also contextualizes contemporary developments within strands of thought stemming back to Ancient Greece and Rome. Sherratt shows how these modes of thinking developed through medieval Christian thought into the Enlightenment and Romantic eras, before becoming mainstays of twentieth-century disciplines. Continental Philosophy of Social Science will serve as the essential textbook for courses in philosophy or social sciences. (shrink)

There is much within contemporary continental philosophy that might give the indication that it is really just disguised Christian theology. However, in line with Hent de Vries and in contrast to Dominique Janicaud, I contend that there are reasons for taking continental God-talk seriously on purely philosophical grounds. On this basis, I then go on to advocate a specific form of God-talk-that dealing with kenosis-as being deeply relevant to contemporary politics because of the way in which it (...) provides an argument for democracy as the political system best opened to the critical function of charity. (shrink)

Until recently, there has been relatively little self-conscious reflection - from either environmental or continental philosophers - on the specific contributions which continental philosophy, insofar as it is a distinctive tradition, might make to environmental thought. This situation has begun to change with several recent publications, such as Charles S. Brown and Ted Toadvine's edited collection Ecophenomenology: Back to the Earth Itself, and Bruce V. Foltz and Robert Frodeman's collection Rethinking Nature: Essays in Environmental Philosophy. This (...) special issue aims to continue the discussion of how the continental tradition might advance or transform environmental thinking, both by reconsidering authors such as Kant, Schelling, Nietzsche and Heidegger, and by considering how themes and concepts from continental philosophy and social theory - including Merleau-Ponty's concept of flesh, Foucault's notion of discipline, and Bourdieu's social critique of taste - bear on environmental practice and theory. (shrink)

Continental Philosophy of Social Science demonstrates the unique and autonomous nature of the continental approach to social science and contrasts it with the Anglo-American tradition. Yvonne Sherratt argues for the importance of an historical understanding of the Continental tradition in order to appreciate its individual, humanist character. Examining the key traditions of hermeneutic, genealogy, and critical theory, and the texts of major thinkers such as Gadamer, Ricoeur, Derrida, Nietzsche, Foucault, the Early Frankfurt School and Habermas, she (...) also contextualizes contemporary developments within strands of thought stemming back to Ancient Greece and Rome. Sherratt shows how these modes of thinking developed through medieval Christian thought into the Enlightenment and Romantic eras, before becoming mainstays of twentieth-century disciplines. Continental Philosophy of Social Science will serve as the essential textbook for courses in philosophy or social sciences. (shrink)

Continental philosophy is one of the twentieth century's most important and challenging philosophical movements. This major volume includes fourteen chapters on its major representatives and schools, including phenomenology, existentialism and postmodernism.

Continental philosophy is one of the twentieth century's most important and challenging philosophical movements. This major volume includes fourteen chapters on its major representatives and schools, including phenomenology, existentialism and postmodernism.

Continental philosophy is one of the twentieth century's most important and challenging philosophical movements. This major volume includes fourteen chapters on its major representatives and schools, including phenomenology, existentialism and postmodernism.

Continental Philosophy: A Contemporary Introduction surveys the main trends of European philosophy from Kant to the present. It is clearly written and accessible to students. In a novel approach, Andrew Cutrofello looks at continental philosophy through the lens of four questions that derive from Kant: -How is truth disclosed aesthetically? -To what does the feeling of respect attest? -Must we despair, or may we still hope? -What is the meaning of philosophical humanism? Cutrofello shows how (...) these questions have been taken up by (1) phenomenologists, (2) continental ethicists, (3) hermeneuticians and critical theorists, and (4) existentialists and their critics. In the introduction and conclusion, he explains how the questions raised by continental philosophers differ from their analogues in the analytic tradition. With its frequent references to Shakespeare, Cutrofello's style is lively and engaging. His remarkably comprehensive book will be of interest not only to students but to anyone seeking a reliable overview of the continental tradition. (shrink)

Continental philosophy is one of the twentieth century's most important and challenging philosophical movements. This major volume includes fourteen chapters on its major representatives and schools, including phenomenology, existentialism and postmodernism.

Over the past decade there has been a burgeoning of work in philosophy of religion that has drawn upon and been oriented by “continental” sources in philosophy—associated with figures such as Martin Heidegger, Jacques Derrida, Emmanuel Levinas, Jean-Luc Marion, Gilles Deleuze, and others. This is a significant development and one that should be welcomed by the community of Christian philosophers. However, in this dialogue piece I take stock of the field of “continental philosophy of religion” (...) and suggest that the field is developing some un-healthy patterns and habits. The burden of the paper is to suggest a prescription for the future health of this important field by articulating six key practices that should characterize further scholarship in continental philosophy of religion. (shrink)

The opposition between analytical and continental philosophy has something in common with that other, more worldly and now obsolete opposition between East and West. The observer of politics quickly realizes that ‘East’ and ‘West’ are ideological rather than geographical terms. The West is free and prosperous and celebrates human rights and the American way; the East has been totalitarian, stagnant and oppressive. Japan and Australia are for most purposes in the West, Cuba in the East. Similar anomalies beset (...) our more philosophical dichotomy. There are obvious difficulties in the path of any straightforwardly geographical interpretation. Frege played a seminal role in the development of analytical philosophy despite being German; so did the Vienna Circle and Wittgenstein. On the other hand, there are obvious affinities between such British idealists as Bradley, Collingwood and Oakeshott and their colleagues across the Channel. Contemporary figures like Richard Rorty, Alasdair MacIntyre and Charles Taylor develop ‘continental’ themes in an idiom more congenial to analytical philosophy. Again, there are growing schools of analytical philosophy in France, Germany and elsewhere as well as recurrent waves of a neo‐Kantianism which, in its fundamental claims, is not so very different. (shrink)

The Blackwell Guide to Continental Philosophy is an accessible but sophisticated introduction to the most important figures in Continental philosophy in the last 200 years. Presents a definitive introduction to the core figures and topics of continental philosophy. Contains newly commissioned essays, all of which are written by internationally distinguished scholars. Provides a solid foundation for further study. Subjects include Hegel, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Marx and Marxism, Nietzsche, Husserl and Phenomenology, Heidegger, Sartre, critical theory, Habermas, (...) Gadamer, Foucault, Derrida, postmodernism, and French feminism. (shrink)

This concise yet thorough summary of 20th century continental thought explores research questions that are relevant to contemporary developments in the fields of continental philosophy and political theology, wrestling with the implications of entering a post-secular epoch in both fields.

This chapter relates Ludwig Wittgenstein's work to that of continental philosophy and one need to acknowledge just how contentious the term “continental philosophy” actually is. For most of the twentieth century, academic philosophy in the English‐speaking world was conducted in ways that made no such acknowledgment. Political developments in Europe during the 1930s led many of the leading logical positivists to flee to America, thereby embedding their version of analytic philosophy into the new cultural (...) context, just as Wittgenstein began to criticize the presuppositions of the Tractatus and develop a wholly new way of philosophizing. The chapter explores the relations between Wittgenstein and Heidegger and focuses on themes in Derrida and Nietzsche. Heidegger's Being and Time begins with a quotation from Plato's Sophist: For manifestly you have long been aware of what you mean when you use the expression “being”. (shrink)

A number of writers have tackled the task of characterizing the differences between analytic and Continental philosophy.I suggest that these attempts have indeed captured the most important divergences between the two styles but have left the explanation of the differences mysterious.I argue that analytic philosophy is usefully seen as philosophy conducted within a paradigm, in Kuhn’s sense of the word, whereas Continental philosophy assumes much less in the way of shared presuppositions, problems, methods and (...) approaches.This important opposition accounts for all those features that have rightly been held to constitute the difference between the two traditions.I finish with some reflections on the relative superiority of each tradition and by highlighting the characteristic deficiencies of each. (shrink)

"Emerging Trends in Continental Philosophy" presents a comprehensive and accessible analysis of the most recent developments in European thought. From feminist thought to environmental philosophy to analytic themes in Continental philosophy to recent discussions of citizenship, "Emerging Trends" offers an overview of the currents animating contemporary Continental philosophy. The volume focuses on thematic developments rather than individual figures, allowing the reader to follow the threads that weave different thinkers together. Each essay is written (...) by an expert in the area covered, displaying the passion of these experts for the fields they discuss without lapsing into jargon. The volume provides a broad map of the landscape of recent European thought as well as the latest thinking from leading scholars on key themes. (shrink)

"Emerging Trends in Continental Philosophy" presents a comprehensive and accessible analysis of the most recent developments in European thought. From feminist thought to environmental philosophy to analytic themes in Continental philosophy to recent discussions of citizenship, "Emerging Trends" offers an overview of the currents animating contemporary Continental philosophy. The volume focuses on thematic developments rather than individual figures, allowing the reader to follow the threads that weave different thinkers together. Each essay is written (...) by an expert in the area covered, displaying the passion of these experts for the fields they discuss without lapsing into jargon. The volume provides a broad map of the landscape of recent European thought as well as the latest thinking from leading scholars on key themes. (shrink)

Over the last few decades there has been a phenomenal growth of interest in metaphor as a device which extends or revises our perception of the world. Clive Cazeaux examines the relationship between metaphor, art and science, against the backdrop of modern European philosophy and, in particular, the work of Kant, Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty. He contextualizes recent theories of the cognitive potential of metaphor within modern European philosophy and explores the impact which the notion of cognitive metaphor has (...) on key positions and concepts within aesthetics, epistemology and the philosophy of science. (shrink)

Continental philosophy of religion has been dominated for two decades by "postsecular" and "postmodern" thought. This volume brings together a vanguard of scholars to ask what comes after the postsecular and the postmodern that is, what is Continental philosophy of religion now? Against the subjugation of philosophy to theology, After the Postsecular and the Postmodern: New Essays in Continental Philosophy of Religion argues that philosophy of religion must either liberate itself from theological (...) norms or mutate into a new practice of thinking in order to confront the challenges religion presents for our time. The essays do not propose a new orthodoxy but set the stage for new debates by reclaiming a practice of philosophy of religion that recovers and draws on the insights of a distinctly modern tradition of Continental philosophy, confronts the challenge of rethinking the secular in the light of the postsecular event, and calls for a move from strictly critical to speculative thought in order to experiment with what philosophy can do. This collection of essays is indispensable for anyone interested in the relationship between philosophy and theology, political questions regarding religion and in what contemporary speculative Continental philosophy has to add to philosophy of religion. (shrink)

This book is a fully updated and expanded new edition of _An Introduction to Continental Philosophy_, first published in 1996. It provides a clear, concise and readable introduction to philosophy in the continental tradition. It is a wide-ranging and reliable guide to the work of such major figures as Nietzsche, Habermas, Heidegger, Arendt, Sartre, Foucault, Derrida and Žižek. At the same time, it situates their thought within a coherent overall account of the development of continental (...) class='Hi'>philosophy since the Enlightenment. Individual chapters consider the character of modernity, the Enlightenment and its continental critics; the ideas of Marxism, the Frankfurt School and Habermas; hermeneutics and phenomenology; existentialism; structuralism, post-structuralism and postmodernism. In addition to the thinkers already mentioned, there is extended discussion of the ideas of Kant, Hegel, Dilthey, Husserl, Gadamer, Kierkegaard, de Beauvoir and Lyotard. The new edition includes an additional, full-length chapter on continental philosophy in the twenty-first century focusing on Giorgio Agamben, Alain Badiou and Slavoj Žižek. _Continental Philosophy: An Introduction_ is an invaluable introductory text for courses on continental philosophy as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences dealing with major figures or influential approaches within that tradition. (shrink)

Continental philosophies of science tend to exemplify holistic themes connecting order and contingency, questions and answers, writers and readers, speakers and hearers. Such philosophies of science also tend to feature a fundamental emphasis on the historical and cultural situatedness of discourse as significant; relevance of mutual attunement of speaker and hearer; necessity of pre-linguistic cognition based in human engagement with a common socio-cultural historical world; role of narrative and metaphor as explanatory; sustained emphasis on understanding questioning; truth seen as (...) horizonal, aletheic, or perspectival; and a tolerance for paradoxical and complex forms of expression. Continental philosophy of science is thus more comprehensive than philosophy of science in the analytic tradition, including (and as analytic philosophy of science does not tend to include) perspectives on the history of science as well as the social and practical dimensions of scientific discovery. Where analytic philosophy is about reducing or, indeed, eliminating the perennial problems of philosophy, Continental philosophy is all about thinking and that will mean, as both Heidegger and Nietzsche emphasize, making such problems more not less problematic. (shrink)

This Element presents key features from the writings on religion of twelve philosophers working in or influenced by the continental tradition. It argues for a hybrid methodology which enables transformational religious responses to the problems associated with human existence to be supported both by reasoned argument and by revelation, narrative philosophy, and experiential verification.

Originally published as the Continuum Companion to Continental Philosophy, this book offers the definitive guide to contemporary Continental thought. It covers all the most pressing and important themes and categories in the field - areas that have continued to attract interest historically as well as topics that have emerged more recently as active areas of research. Twelve specially commissioned essays from an international team of experts reveal where important work continues to be done in the field and, (...) valuably, how the various topics intersect. Featuring a series of indispensable research tools, including an A to Z of key terms and concepts, a chronology, and a guide to practical research in the field, this is the essential reference tool for anyone working in and studying Continental Philosophy. (shrink)

Colby Dickinson proposes a new political theology rooted in the intersections between continental philosophy, heterodox theology, and orthodox theology. Moving beyond the idea that there is an irresolvable tension at the heart of theological discourse, the conflict between the two poles of theology is made intelligible. Dickinson discusses the opposing poles simply as manifestations of reform and revolution, characteristics intrinsic to the nature of theological discourse itself. Outlining the illuminating space of theology, Theological Poverty in Continental (...) class='Hi'>Philosophy breaks new ground for critical theology and continental philosophy. Within the theology of poverty, the believer renounces the worldly for the divine. Through this focus on the poverty intrinsic to religious calling, the potential for cross-pollination between the theological and the secular is highlighted. Ultimately situating the virtue of theological poverty within a poststructuralist, postmodern world, Dickinson is not content to position Christian philosophy as the superior theological position, moving away from the absolute values of one tradition over another. This universalising of theological poverty through core and uniting concepts like grace, negation, violence and paradox reveal the theory's transmutable strength. By joining up critical theology and the philosophy of religion in this way, the book broadens the possibility of a critical dialogue both between and within disciplines. (shrink)

The nineteenth century was a dynamic time of philosophical development. This volume explores the rich tradition of nineteenth-century Continental philosophy, highlighting the importance of this tradition for the leading streams of thought of the twentieth and twenty-first century.

This chapter contains sections titled: Works cited Additional recommended readings.

This essay explores some of the affinities between current theories of North American Indigenous trickster narratives and continental philosophy where they are both concerned with the question of responsibility in subject formations. Taking up the work of Judith Butler, Franz Kafka and Gerald Vizenor, the author works to show how both continental and Indigenous intellectual traditions work against any assumed stability for the ‘I’ in the narration of the self, yet toward responsible relationality. Such affinities, however, emerge (...) from differing socio‐cultural and linguistic horizons that are not reducible one to the other. This is particularly so with regard to the natural world and the ways in which Indigenous narratives are developed to foster responsible subjects to a larger biotic environment. Through discussion of such affinities and differences, the author seeks to broaden and multiculturalize contemporary debates in philosophy. (shrink)

Recently, the philosophical significance of comedy has attracted a great deal of attention from Continental philosophers, including this author. After venturing an account for this sudden interest, this paper surveys six contemporary books that take different views of this phenomenon. This fertile field will surely benefit from the contributions and responses of Philosophy Compass' readers.